About the blogger

Stephanie Curtis has produced events, daily news shows, documentaries, conferences and call-ins for MPR News. She also was among the pioneering producers who launched The Current. You can hear her discuss movies every Thursday on The Cube Critics.

“By the usual Broadway standards, “A Streetcar Named Desire” is too long; not all those words are essential. But Mr. Williams is entitled to his own independence. For he has not forgotten that human beings are the basic subject of art. Out of poetic imagination and ordinary compassion he has spun a poignant and luminous story.”

lucy

Been lucky enough to see ‘Streetcar’ at the Guthrie a few years ago. Love all off Tenesse Williams’s works!

“Mann’s loose, naturalistic approach to the text is respectful without being too reverential. What distinguishes her production, however, is the evocative atmosphere of a milieu in which sex, death and violence perfume the sweaty air. Spiced by the jazzy strains of Terence Blanchard’s original score, this Streetcar smolders.”

I have seen the Streetcar movie and three theatre productions of the play. The two productions I enjoyed the most were one at the Theatre Garage, directed by Zach Curtis, with Stacia Rice, Carolyn Pool and Steve Sweere, and the other was directed by Jef Hall-Flavin at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival with an all Kiwi cast. What made these shows so enjoyable was the intimacy of the spaces. Very small houses, contained sets, focused acting.

vicki

So many to choose from, Grapes of Wrath would be very timely, but I’ve read it and seen the movie twice. Tree Grows in Brooklyn is awesome too, but read it already.

I vote for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Silent Spring, or Sagan’s Cosmos.

Diane Forest

I am now 55 but still remember my college freshman American Lit professor, when asked why there were NO women writers on the reading list, said he could not think of a single influential American novel written by a woman. I timidly raised my hand and suggested Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. The professor laughed.

I vote for Little Women–still one of my favorite novels–or Silent Spring.

Stephanie Curtis

Here are the 88:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884

Alcoholics Anonymous anonymous 1939

American Cookery Amelia Simmons 1796

The American Woman’s Home Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe 1869

And the Band Played On Randy Shilts 1987

Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957

The Autobiography of Malcolm X Malcolm X and Alex Haley 1965

Beloved Toni Morrison 1987

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Brown 1970

The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903

The Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss 1957

Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961

The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger 1951

Charlotte’s Web E.B. White 1952

Common Sense Thomas Paine 1776

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care Benjamin Spock 1946

Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980

A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible anonymous 1788

The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968

The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907

Experiments and Observations on Electricity Benjamin Franklin 1751

Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953

Family Limitation Margaret Sanger 1914

The Federalist anonymous 1787

The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan 1963

The Fire Next Time James Baldwin 1963

For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940

Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936

Goodnight Moon Margaret Wise Brown 1947

A Grammatical Institute of the English Language Noah Webster 1783

The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925

Harriet, the Moses of Her People Sarah H. Bradford 1901

The History of Standard Oil Ida Tarbell 1904

History of the Expedition Under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark Meriwether Lewis 1814

How the Other Half Lives Jacob Riis 1890

How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie 1936

Howl Allen Ginsberg 1956

The Iceman Cometh Eugene O’Neill 1946

Idaho: A Guide in Word and Pictures Federal Writers’ Project 1937

In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966

Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952

Joy of Cooking Irma Rombauer 1931

The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906

Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irving 1820

Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy Louisa May Alcott 1868

Mark, the Match Boy Horatio Alger Jr. 1869

McGuffey’s Newly Revised Eclectic Primer William Holmes McGuffey 1836

Moby-Dick; or The Whale Herman Melville 1851

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845

Native Son Richard Wright 1940

New England Primer anonymous 1803

New Hampshire Robert Frost 1923

On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957

Our Bodies, Ourselves Boston Women’s Health Book Collective 1971

Our Town: A Play Thornton Wilder 1938

Peter Parley’s Universal History Samuel Goodrich 1837

Poems Emily Dickinson 1890

Poor Richard Improved and The Way to Wealth Benjamin Franklin 1758

Pragmatism William James 1907

The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. Benjamin Franklin 1793

The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895

Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett 1929

Riders of the Purple Sage Zane Grey 1912

The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male Alfred C. Kinsey 1948

Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962

The Snowy Day Ezra Jack Keats 1962

The Souls of Black Folk W.E.B. Du Bois 1903

The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929

Spring and All William Carlos Williams 1923

Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961

A Street in Bronzeville Gwendolyn Brooks 1945

A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams 1947

A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America Christopher Colles 1789